New Mideast resin will reshape global industry

10 June 2008 18:23[Source: ICIS news]

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (ICIS news)--An additional 15m tonnes of feedstock-advantaged plastic resins will be exported from the Middle East by 2011, and no part of the world will be untouched by the flood, a plastics industry consultant said on Tuesday.

"It can't all go to China," said Phillip Townsend, chief executive of Townsend Polymer Services & Information. "The developing countries have their own agenda. They don't want to be a dumping ground."

The new polyolefins capacity in the Middle East was at the top of the agenda at Townsend's Emerging Markets in the Plastics Industry (TEMPI) conference. The conference was held 9-10 June in Las Vegas.

The new capacity is likely to create a global price floor set by naphtha-based integrated polyolefins producers, and non-integrated producers will be forced out of the market, said Chris Hogan, executive vice president for Nobel Chemicals.

Townsend added, "The products are going to get to market, and they are going to shut someone down somewhere."

"It is difficult to shut down a polymer plant," Townsend said. "It takes a very significant downshift in polymer pricing."